


A Softer Epilogue

by masterofgallifrey



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 10:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11400294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masterofgallifrey/pseuds/masterofgallifrey
Summary: Bill asks Heather to rearrange a few more atoms for her and saves two Time Lord's instead of one.[10x12 fix-it fic].





	A Softer Epilogue

The rain poured down from the artificial sky, soaking through her clothes, and dripping across her skin. For the first time in weeks, she could actually feel again. There was nothing to trap or inhibit her anymore.

It was almost overwhelming.

“The Doctor, we can’t just leave him.” Bill said.

“Of course we can’t, and we’re not going to.” Heather replied, her voice reassuring.

Bill had a thought then, and she knew that if she didn’t voice it now it would eat at her forever. She couldn’t leave the Doctor alone.

“And his friend, Missy. I- I don’t know if she’s still here, but could we look for her?” Bill asked, her face earnest.

Heather smiled, and took Bill’s hand in hers, and Bill knew instinctively that Heather would do this for her, would do anything for her.

Especially something so simple.

It only took them a few moments, travelling through the water to locate Missy’s prone form.

Her body is laid out on the ashen ground in a way eerily similar to how the Doctor himself had fallen.

Bill collapses next to her in the mud, eyes roaming over Missy’s blank expression.

Cold, dead eyes staring up at the false sky above.

Her hand shakes as she brings it against Missy’s neck.

Nothing.

No pulse.

She’d been scared of her, and with good reason, but Bill can’t help thinking of how the Doctor had talked about her, how he’d yearned for her, desperately wanted her to be good.

How clear it was that he loved her.

Heather rests a comforting hand upon her shoulder.

“I can put her in the Doctor’s ship. I can put you all there, if that’s what you want, Bill?” Heather said, the question clear in her voice.

Whatever happened next was all up to her.

She looked into Heather’s eyes and smiled.

If she could get a happy ending, after all this pain, then the Doctor _certainly_ deserved one too.

Bill nodded.

Then, they were all atom’s speeding through the rain. Bill, Heather, Missy, and a few moments later, the Doctor too.

They deposit both Time Lord’s in the TARDIS.

The ship hums softly around them. Relieved.

Bill worries for a moment about whether they’ll both be alright, but the Doctor had told her some stories about Missy and her propensity to come back from the dead, and she feels something when she looks at the Doctor, it’s as if he’s always been here, and always will.

_The universe needs him too much._

They’ll both survive this. She knows it, deep in the core of her being.

She doesn’t know how she knows, but she does.

Bill, clinging to Heather’s hand tightly, steps over the threshold of the TARDIS doors and out into the universe, stars blazing magnificently around them both.

* * *

 

Missy blinks.

Her eyes flutter open slowly.

She coughs a few times, ash thick in her lungs.

Lights filter in, and even though her vision is still blurred, she’d recognize them anywhere. Only the Doctor would decorate his TARDIS in such a garish fashion. Nothing like the sleekness of her own TARDIS, of course. The Doctor had no sense of style and never had.

She reaches out with her mind, and immediately feels the familiar presence of the Doctor’s ship all around her.

She scarcely dares to hope, the last she’d seen of him he’d been going off to his death, so she reaches out further with her mind, and comes upon the Doctor’s.

She lets out a deep sigh of relief.

He’s still unconscious, and from what she can tell from his surface thoughts, which are _embarrassingly_ easy to see, really, he’s extensively weakened from multiple cyber-blasts.

She can just about sense the oncoming regeneration. The spark of artron energy in the synapses.

Missy could kill her former self.

She’d really liked this Doctor; he had a great voice, and the best hair since his third one.

Wait.

The memory of a knife slipping smoothly into flesh jumps to the forefront of her mind.

So, she’d already done that it seems.

She sits up sharply, forcing air into her lungs, and blinking the last of the blurriness from her vision. She looks over at the Doctor, still lying prone, his coat spread out beneath him.

The bright red of his coat lining looks like a pool of blood under him, she thinks absentmindedly.

She crawls over to him, and briefly debates shaking him awake. She relents though, not wanting to cause him any further pain or trauma at this point.

He’s been through enough, and she’s been through one or two bad regenerations herself.

She places a hand carefully on his shoulder.

“Doctor.” She says, before coughing again.

She repeats his name, but louder this time, more demanding, and with a bit of a psychic push behind it.

The cut on his forehead changes colour, the tell tale glow of regeneration energy.

Missy’s eyes widen, and before she can scramble away, the Doctor’s eyes snap open, he takes in a giant gulp of air, and he grips both of her arms tightly.

“Sontaran’s perverting the course of human history!” He blurts out.

Well… _that was certainly unexpected_.

He lets go of her, still out of breath, disorientated, and lurches to his feet.

She follows him up, just as he falls against the console.

“I don’t want to go.” He says, sadly, eyes looking right through her, mind not quite in the present moment.

She frowns at the pang his sadness causes in her hearts.

Missy reaches out to steady him, but he spins away again before she can get to him.

She huffs.

“When the Doctor… When the Doctor was me.” He breathes out, gesturing wildly with his arms.

The gestures are familiar, but... not quite what she’s come to expect from this one.

 _Oh_.

She realizes what’s happening now.

His life’s flashing before his eyes, it seems.

The ship lurches, console beeping, and she looks around in alarm.

“No, no, no.” the Doctor growls out.

Missy snaps her head back to look at him, startled by the glowing energy emanating from his hands.

“Missy.” he says, finally noticing her, and about time too.

“Doctor, my dear, you have to let it happen. It’ll go easier that way.” Missy says, unable to completely hide the concern in her voice. Nor the sense of urgency.

She wants to step closer to him, in an attempt to reassure perhaps, but she’s very aware of the artron energy still pouring from his hands. She really doesn’t want to get caught in the crossfire. She's spent more than enough time as a burnt, emaciated husk, thank you very much.

With a shout, he clenches his fists, and visibly, painfully, forces the energy back.

The TARDIS settles.

She watches him with wide eyes.

Well now, that can’t be healthy.

“What the hell d’you think you’re doing, man!” Her accent slips into one more similar to his as her anger, her confusion, briefly gets the better of her.

He throws her an irritated look, before turning away.

She narrows her eyes.

“Where’ve you taken me?” The Doctor addresses the TARDIS, “If you’re trying to make a point, I’m not listening. _I don’t want to change again_. Never again! I can’t keep on being somebody else.” His voice wobbles, “Wherever it is, I’m staying.”

He walks past her, his stride determined, and opens the doors.

Cold and snow drifts in from outside as he leaves the TARDIS.

Missy leans against the main console for a moment, lips pursed. Then she sighs and follows him outside.

After that little speech she’s sure of one thing, what he said all those years ago right after her botched cyberman scheme/birthday present was _completely_ correct. He really is an idiot sometimes.

She steps outside next to the Doctor, right as another man approaches them through the swirling snow. The Doctor’s peering out into the blizzard, magnificent eyebrows scrunched up into a frown.

The TARDIS had picked a right spot to land them in. It was _absolutely freezing_. She was chilled to the bone already.

“You may be ‘a’ doctor…” the startlingly familiar voice is coming from the figure advancing steadily through the blizzard, “… but I’m _the_ Doctor.”

The figure finally coalesces, close enough so as not to be obscured by the snow, and Missy gasps, reaching out and grabbing at her Doctor’s arm.

He steps closer to them, and it seems that her Doctor is frozen in shock beside her.

She can’t really blame him, she thinks, if her first self showed up she’d probably have the same reaction.

“And who might you be, my dear young lady?” He says, looking right at her.

_She feels like she’s looking at a ghost._

It’s been such a long time since Missy had last seen him like this, with this particular face.

And his eyes, they’re so unbelievably _young_.

“I’m Missy.” She forces out, past frozen lips.

The Doctor smiles at her.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: the immortal space lesbians save the immortal space pansexuals.


End file.
